In the past several years, minimally invasive surgical techniques have been developed to, inter alia, reduce trauma to surrounding tissue and promote faster healing periods. Percutaneous instrumentation is now widely available to effectuate the removal of bodily organs, degenerated tissue, excess tissue and the like. Usually, a cutting instrument is attached to, or comprises, the end of a cannula for excising the tissue. A vacuum source is then typically employed for removing the excised tissue through the cannula.
Various devices and methods have been developed for collecting excised tissue. In particular, U.S. Pat. No. 5,037,379 to Clayman et al. discloses a surgical tissue bag which is percutaneously inserted to receive a tissue mass therein. A tissue morcellator is then introduced into the bag for debulking the tissue mass. The debulked tissue mass within the tissue bag is then removed through the insertion site.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,224,434, 3,661,144, 3,889,657, 3,929,133, 4,393,879, 5,108,381 and 5,197,968 disclose tissue removal systems wherein a stationary and/or rigid tissue collection trap is used to collect the tissue samples therein. Some of the systems provide removable traps for accessing the collected tissue while others do not. In each case, however, the tissue collection trap or container is of a predetermined size and remains stationary within the system for the duration of the tissue collection procedure.
An important aspect of any tissue removal procedure is the subsequent pathological evaluation of the removed tissue. This is particularly critical when removing, for example, cancerous or diseased tissue. Prior art systems, while permitting complete removal and collection of tissue, are not able to insure the staging, or ordering, of collected tissue. Thus, it is usually extremely difficult, and often impossible, for a pathologist to reconstruct the bulk tissue, as it existed prior to removal, from the mass of tissue bits provided by such systems. What is needed is a tissue collection and staging apparatus which provides a mass of collected tissue bits in substantially the same order in which they were excised from the bulk tissue. Such an apparatus would alleviate the often insurmountable burden on the pathologist to attempt to reconstruct the bulk tissue from the collected tissue bits.